The present invention relates to an accessory to verify the tuning of musical instruments and pertains particularly to an improved electronic tuner providing sense of touch indication for acoustic or electrically amplified stringed, reed, and wind instruments, the tuner being used by a person, hereinafter referred to as the "player". Musical notes from the instrument, hereinafter referred to as "tuning notes", are "in tune" when within an acceptable tolerance range of acoustic pitch determined by the tuner.
It is frequently necessary to adjust tuning of a musical instrument during use and tuning is typically verified by prior art tuners including oral pitch pipes, percussive tuning forks, or audible or visual electronic tuners. Pitch pipes, tuning forks and audible electronic tuners produce sounds to which the instrument is qualitatively tuned by ear, tuning accuracy depending on the sensitivity of the player's ear to pitch. Although visual electronic tuners provide quantitative indication that the instrument is in tune by a light display or rotating needle, they are not usable by blind musicians. Prior art tuners have the disadvantage that they must be handled during use so that the player's hands are not free to adjust tuning of the instrument and a place is not always available to physically rest the tuner. Some electronic tuners can be attached to the instrument to free the player's hands, but are distracting to view and difficult to position. Another problem with prior art electronic tuners is identification of a reference tuning note when the desired tuning note is substantially out of tune, requiring the use of a manual switch before automatic switching for the remaining tuning notes can take place. This problem occurs because an electronic tuner cannot distinguish between tuning notes of nearly the same pitch, for example D and E which are both a string on the guitar. The problem is further complicated by the inclusion of temporarily unused tuning notes in the tuner's sensing capability, such as D below low E, available for non-standard tuning, or the bass tuning notes of a combination bass-guitar tuner. Pick up of background noise is also an inherent problem with prior art tuners.
In the present invention I disclose an improved electronic tuner which picks up minimal background noise and provides rapid and accurate indication that selected tuning notes are in tune by quiet vibration, conveniently felt by both blind and sighted players. Three alternate component arrangements improve upon the convenience of tuner location, including; placement of all tuner components on the musical instrument; placement of the vibrator on the person of the player, connected by radio transmission, to the sensor attached to the instrument; or placement of the tuner on the person of the player with sealed contact between the instrument and the sound sensor attached to the tuner. These tuner placement options free the player's hands to rapidly adjust tuning without distraction and it is not required to find a place to rest the tuner. Improved tuning note identification with the tuner of the present invention eliminates the need for manual switching. One tuning sequence option is to first distinguish a reference tuning note by intermittent vibrator operation and then identify the remaining tuning notes by steady vibrator operation. Another tuning sequence is to distinguish the reference tuning note by vibrator operation at a frequency which is substantially different than the frequency used to identify the remaining tuning notes. Many other tuning note identification sequences are possible using variations of these basic sequences. Tuning note identification by sense of touch is preferred to audible or visual methods because quiet and fully automatic rapid tuning can be performed while the player's hands are free of distracting switch operation. Pick up of background noise is reduced with the tuner of the present invention because the sensor is either in contact with or inside of the instrument.